The Year Ahead in New York

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If the phrase “annus horribilis” had not already worked its way into the language — thank you, Queen Elizabeth II — some New Yorker thinking deep, year-end thoughts would surely have coined it for 2012.

In Albany, four men in a room will be making the decisions, not the customary three, because suddenly the State Senate will squeeze two leaders alongside Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver.

And the old year will cast a long shadow over the new.

Our memories of the twin calamities of 2012 — the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Hurricane Sandy — may fade, as memories do. But gun control is sure to be debated in 2013. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is promising to go nationwide with his crusade against illegal guns, spending his own millions to counter the gun lobby.

And low-lying neighborhoods will be rebuilt by hard-pressed homeowners, while task forces and commissions debate how to keep the city safe from the next monster storm.

Mayoral politics will dominate the local headlines. Mr. Bloomberg’s many would-be successors will not have the personal fortune he spent to win office ($174 per vote in 2009). Which of them will end up on the November ballot: Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker? Joseph J. Lhota, who is leaving the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to look into running as a Republican? Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner?

It is enough to make you think about buying a crystal ball. One smaller than the Wicked Witch of the West’s costs $1,000 at a shop on Centre Street in Chinatown, close enough to City Hall and Wall Street for policy makers and traders alike to stroll by at lunchtime.

If they did, the clerk behind the counter would tell them that a crystal ball feels fatigue from the energy that goes into predictions. You have to bring it back from time to time for something that, in a year like 2012, sounds singularly appropriate. “Deep cleaning,” she called it.

When lawmakers return to the New York State Capitol in January, the first order of business for Albany’s three men in a room will be finding an extra chair.

For years, just three people — the governor, the Assembly speaker and the Senate majority leader — have made most major decisions in Albany, controlling the state budget and negotiating all major legislation. But in an unprecedented development, the Senate in the coming year is to be led by two men. So Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo; the speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Democrat; and the Republican Senate leader, Dean G. Skelos, will be joined by Jeffrey D. Klein, the leader of a schismatic group of dissident Senate Democrats who have pledged to share decision-making with the Republicans despite their ideological differences.

The leaders will confront a host of familiar issues, including a debate over whether to raise the minimum wage, a push to overhaul campaign-finance laws and a proposal to expand casino gambling.

But lawmakers also face two new problems, caused by recent crises. Hurricane Sandy severely damaged infrastructure in New York City and on Long Island, and its economic toll could further strain the state’s shaky finances. And this month, the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., has brought the issue of gun control to the forefront.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, is planning to propose a package of new gun laws in his State of the State address in January. His proposals are likely to provide the first major test of the new Senate leadership arrangement, as Republicans in the chamber have traditionally resisted gun-control measures.

That is the big question as Mr. Bloomberg concludes his 12th and final year at City Hall, though voters will have other choices to make in 2013, as well. Openings are likely for a new comptroller, a new public advocate, four new borough presidents and about two dozen new City Council members, thanks to term limits or bids for other offices.

In the mayor’s race, the strong favorite two years ago was Representative Anthony D. Weiner. But a “sexting” scandal prompted Mr. Weiner to resign. Then the city comptroller, John C. Liu, emerged as a dark-horse pick. But a campaign fund-raising scandal damaged his prospects. Then came a flurry of rumors involving everyone from Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, back to Mr. Weiner again.

Michael Appleton for The New York TimesMayor Michael R. Bloomberg

Such speculation hints at a general unease among some political insiders regarding the current slate of expected candidates. After all, the next mayor will face knotty issues in finance, labor, education and other areas.

Among Democrats, the likely leading candidates are Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, whose base includes pro-Bloomberg Democrats; William C. Thompson Jr., a former comptroller, whose base includes African-Americans; and Bill de Blasio, the public advocate, whose base includes labor groups. (Mr. Liu is also likely to run.)

Among Republicans, the front-runner could be Joseph J. Lhota, who is stepping down as chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to explore a bid. Others running or considering running include Adolfo Carrión Jr., a former Bronx borough president; John A. Catsimatidis, who owns the Gristedes supermarket chain; Tom Allon, a newspaper publisher; and George T. McDonald, the president of the Doe Fund.

The Congressional delegations from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut face at least one daunting challenge. So far, the governors from these storm-battered states have identified about $82 billion in damage resulting from Hurricane Sandy. As the new year approaches, the region’s lawmakers in Washington have been focused on trying to pass a $60.4 billion aid package and getting the money flowing.

The concern among the senators and representatives is that as the storm fades from memory, Congress will feel less compelled to confront its consequences fully. This means that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut could end up being shortchanged, with Washington ultimately providing far less than the states say they need to rebuild and prepare for future storms.

The coming year will also offer plenty of political intrigue — at least for members of New Jersey’s Congressional delegation. Fellow Democrats from New Jersey to Washington have increasingly wondered whether Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, 88, will retire at the end of his current term. Several prominent New Jersey Democrats — including Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark and Representative Frank Pallone Jr., a 13-term congressman from Monmouth County — have expressed clear interest in running for his seat in 2014. But at the same time, no one wants to do anything to antagonize Mr. Lautenberg, a proud and strong-willed man who some Democrats believe may try to hold on to his seat if he believes he is being pushed out before he is ready to go.

Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, is up for re-election for the first time, in 2013. His first term saw a lot of attention focused on two difficult cases: the dropped prosecution of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the acquittal of two city police officers on rape charges. But Mr. Vance was given credit in The New York Law Journal for significantly increasing the office’s felony conviction rate since taking the job. He has also ramped up his office’s attempts to prosecute white-collar crime, a category dominated by federal prosecutors. He is running unopposed so far in an office that has historically granted tremendous electoral benefits to the incumbent.

In Brooklyn, meanwhile, Charles J. Hynes, the district attorney, will face at least two opponents in the Democratic primary in the new year. Kenneth P. Thompson, a prominent trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor, and Abe George, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, have announced they are challenging him. Mr. Hynes has been in office more than 20 years, but he has recently come under fire for failing to investigate sexual abuse claims in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities and for his office’s mishandling of cases that sent innocent people to prison.

The city’s courts will see many high-profile trials, including Mr. Vance’s prosecution of Pedro Hernandez in the killing of Etan Patz, the 6-year-old boy who disappeared on his way to a SoHo bus stop in 1979.

After decades during which other suspects were investigated, Mr. Hernandez made a surprise confession to prosecutors and the police last spring. But his lawyer said the confession was the byproduct of mental illness, and Mr. Hernandez has recanted. It appears no other evidence has emerged, so the trial could hinge on whether a jury believes the videotaped confession.

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

In May, New York City police investigated a building in Soho connected with a man who confessed to murdering Etan Patz.

There could be a rare death-penalty trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn this coming year. Ronell Wilson was convicted of killing two undercover police officers and sentenced to death in 2007. But an appellate court tossed out the sentence — though not the conviction — because of a prosecutor’s error. Now the federal government is bringing another case arguing for Mr. Wilson’s death; it will revisit the gruesome details that shocked the city several years ago, unless a judge rules that Mr. Wilson is mentally disabled and not subject to capital punishment.

Manhattan’s Federal District Court will also see prosecutions in political corruption and terrorism cases.

Two allies of John C. Liu, the city comptroller, are scheduled for trial in February in what prosecutors say was an illegal campaign-finance scheme. The defendants, Jia Hou, Mr. Liu’s former campaign treasurer, and Xing Wu Pan, a fund-raiser, have pleaded not guilty. Mr. Liu, a Democrat, has not been charged with wrongdoing.

Larry B. Seabrook, a former councilman, is to be sentenced in January for orchestrating a scheme to use a network of nonprofit groups to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars in city money to relatives, friends and a girlfriend.

Three defendants extradited from Britain face trial in terrorism cases later in the year. Mostafa Kamel Mostafa, an Islamic preacher, has been charged with conspiring in a 1998 kidnapping of American and other tourists in Yemen; and two other men are charged with conspiring in Al Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of two United States Embassies in East Africa, attacks that killed more than 200 people. All three have pleaded not guilty.

In another widely watched case, Mansour J. Arbabsiar, an Iranian-American who pleaded guilty in a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States, is scheduled to be sentenced in February.

And then there is the bizarre case of Gilberto Valle, a New York City police officer who faces trial next month in a plot to kidnap, cook and eat women; he has pleaded not guilty.

Will 2013 be the year that some of the city’s most prominent corporations decide to relocate, prompting the development of new skyscrapers in Midtown and downtown Manhattan?

The Durst Organization and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are still hunting for tenants for 1 World Trade Center, and the developer Larry Silverstein will be forced to stop construction on 3 World Trade Center unless he comes up with a tenant soon. His other tower at the site, 4 World Trade Center, could be finished by the end of the year.

The Related Companies is also looking for a major corporate tenant for Hudson Yards, for its second big office tower. That would allow the company to begin building a platform over the rail yard, a shopping mall, a cultural institution and several residential towers. The No. 7 subway extension may have a long-promised ribbon-cutting ceremony in December, but the public probably won’t be able to travel through it until the following spring.

In Brooklyn, the first of 15 residential towers is under construction at Atlantic Yards. In Queens, the Related Companies and Monadnock Construction are expected to break ground shortly on Hunters Point South, which promises to be the largest affordable-housing complex nationally in more than three decades.

The city is rushing to complete the “Midtown East” rezoning while Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg remains in office, which would allow developers to build skyscrapers near Grand Central Terminal. The administration is also trying to revamp plans for Willets Point, Queens, to allow a major shopping mall next to CitiField, rather than the “next great neighborhood” that the mayor once promised.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will have to be much more specific in the new year about his plans for bringing full-scale casino resorts to New York if he wants to continue to get approval by the State Legislature. One of the big questions is whether a casino will be permitted in Manhattan, a dream for Las Vegas gambling operators. Expect tens of millions to be spent on lobbying campaigns for and against.

Even before Hurricane Sandy blew through, it was clear that the next year would be about rebuilding.

The metropolitan area’s economy has not recovered fully from the long recession. Construction has not resumed its old pace. And the big banks on Wall Street have been cutting thousands of jobs as they restructure for a period of slow growth.

Now, the region is waiting for tens of billions of dollars in aid from the federal government to repair the damage that the storm caused to transit lines, bridges and boardwalks. The sooner Congress approves that financing, the sooner it will set off a burst of activity and create hundreds, and possibly thousands, of new jobs.

The stimulative effect could be enough to shake the local economy out of the doldrums that it slipped into in the second half of 2012. After outperforming the rest of the nation in the bounce-back from the recession, New York City has seen its recovery start to sputter.

By November, the annual growth rate of private-sector jobs in the city had slowed to 2 percent, just a little higher than the national rate, 1.8 percent. Wall Street has been no help: the securities industry, which has traditionally pulled New York out of recessions by hiring and paying big bonuses, shrank slightly in 2012.

And sometime in 2013, the city’s stature as the world’s capital of finance is due to take another blow when a company based in Atlanta, Intercontinental Exchange, completes its takeover of the New York Stock Exchange.

The Bloomberg administration has one more year to remake the city’s school system.

Undoubtedly among the goals: working to get new charter schools approved; closing and reopening as many poorly performing schools as possible; and trying to see a new teacher-evaluation system approved and put in place. Much of the work will hinge on relations with the New York City teachers’ union.

As the 2013 mayoral race comes to a boil, Exhibit A in any candidate’s case for educational clout will be the endorsement of the union’s president, Michael Mulgrew. The United Federation of Teachers stayed mum in the last two mayoral contests and is feuding with City Hall over several issues, including teacher performance and charter schools. But events are queued up for a natural pairing this time, maybe even ahead of the Democratic primary: the union has no contract, and would-be successors to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg thirst for the financial and electoral support of its 200,000 members.

Michael Appleton for The New York Times

Michael Mulgrew, center right, at a rally to support New York City's public schools in March. John C. Liu, the comptroller, stands center left.

Teachers, parents and others can expect Hurricane Sandy’s impact to reach into 2013, with damaged schools, displaced students and school days to make up — three full days scheduled in February and a half-day in June. How storm-related absences affect pupils’ grades is just one factor, along with new curriculum standards called Common Core, which many expect will be a drag on test results for students in the third through eighth grades, who will sit for the state’s standardized math and English exams in the spring.

And as officials push remaining bits of the Bloomberg administration’s education agenda, observers will be on the lookout for top administrators at the Education Department to begin peeling off for the private sector.

After more than four years of increasingly polarizing debate, New York is poised to decide whether to allow drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale using the extraction process known as fracking. That decision had been expected in 2012 but was postponed pending further study of the potential impact of drilling on the environment and public health. State regulators are now scheduled to complete their environmental review and proposed regulations by February. Then Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, considering both environmental concerns and the jobs that the gas industry would provide, is expected to say whether New York will approve fracking, and under what conditions. (A decision to go forward would surely set off litigation from environmental groups, which could mean further delays.)

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, state and city officials have convened commissions and task forces to plan for future storms. These groups will consider measures like strengthening the building code and installing sea gates to block storm surges. Also under study is an overhaul of storm response and preparation by the state’s power utility companies, and toughening the city’s aging transportation infrastructure.

Efforts to contain the harmful effects of climate change may also gather urgency. New York is one of nine Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states in the cap-and-trade system known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which participants say has succeeded in lowering emissions and funneling millions of dollars to energy-efficiency programs. A crucial decision facing the states in 2013 is whether to set a stricter ceiling on carbon dioxide emissions from electric power providers.

It may seem as if Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s soda ban has already begun, because the debate has been so noisy. But restrictions on the sale of sugary drinks of more than 16 ounces in movie theaters, restaurants, stadiums and other places will actually go into effect in March, barring a successful legal challenge. The city’s health department will then be able to study whether forcing people to drink smaller portions will bear out the theories of Dr. Thomas A. Farley, the health commissioner, who believes that changing the environment is the best way to change behavior.

The four New York City hospitals that were hit hardest by Hurricane Sandy — Bellevue Hospital Center, the country’s oldest public hospital; Coney Island Hospital, also a public hospital with a mission to serve the poor; NYU Langone Medical Center, a prominent academic medical center; and the Manhattan hospital operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs — will be phasing in full services, if all goes according to plan. And residents affected by the storm will continue to worry about the consequences to their health, both mental and physical.

The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund will begin making awards. And the Affordable Care Act will continue to kick in, with consequences for New Yorkers. The law’s newly created insurance exchanges, state markets that are supposed to make it easier for individuals and small businesses to afford health insurance, will begin enrollment in the fall. Hospitals expect to benefit from an increase in patients covered by insurance, which may help to buoy some faltering institutions.

For many New Yorkers who live in Flood Zone A — areas like the edges of Staten Island, the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens and Coney Island and Red Hook in Brooklyn — life will continue to be defined by Hurricane Sandy well into 2013.

Stephen Kroninger

Residents will find that rebuilding is far more than a matter of picking up hammers and nails. They will have to grapple with enormous questions of how to rebuild — quickly or with an eye to a future storm — and for many that decision will be dictated by outside factors. Homeowners may find themselves stymied by banks reluctant to give loans for homes situated in harm’s way, and by soon-to-be redrawn flood maps, which may make it too costly, or even impossible, to get insurance in some areas.

Even as they address the physical challenge of rebuilding storm-damaged homes, schools and streets, many will also be weighing a monumental question: Should they stay or go? The year ahead may bear witness to demographic changes in areas affected by the storm as some people give up and others — smelling opportunity — swoop in.

In the realm of immigration, New York City has often appeared to be dancing to its own tune. As other parts of the country have clamped down on immigrant populations, the city’s elected officials, led by a pro-immigrant mayor, have thrown open the door even wider to the foreign-born, regardless of immigration status.

Immigrants make up more than one-third of the city’s population, and their numbers will likely continue to grow. The city will continue to offer an extraordinarily wide array of immigrant services intended to help ease assimilation. And more of the country may start to follow New York’s lead.

After President Obama won 71 percent of the Latino vote, he said he would make the comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s immigration system — in particular, a bill to legalize 11 million illegal immigrants — one of the first items on his agenda in the coming year. Since the election, Republicans leaders have urged their party to adopt a new posture toward immigrants and to support some sort of legislation to fix illegal immigration. There is no telling whether they will achieve their goals. But as this debate gathers momentum in the new year, New York will find itself with plenty of new company on the dance floor.

Democrats had been spoiling for a heavyweight fight: Booker vs. Christie. But even with Cory A. Booker, the mayor of Newark, out of the ring, Gov. Chris Christie’s re-election bid will still be the state’s big story in the new year.

New Jersey is one of only two states to have regular elections for governor in 2013. Mr. Christie’s popularity soared, even among Democrats, after Hurricane Sandy. And as Mr. Booker weighed his options, Mr. Christie was able to win a big labor endorsement — even after cutting public union benefits soon after he came into office.

But Democrats note that the share of voters who said they would re-elect Mr. Christie topped out at 53 percent after the storm, and was below 50 percent before his fleece became famous. The state has roughly 700,000 more Democrats than Republicans. And Mr. Christie oversees a grim economy: the unemployment rate, at 9.6 percent, is still about 2 points higher than it is nationally, and it is among the country’s highest.

Rating agencies have warned that the governor’s budget is structurally unsound: He bet on 8.4 percent economic growth for the current fiscal year, but even before the storm, it was coming in at about 0.1 percent, with especially sluggish income- and sales-tax revenues. That will force ugly, midcycle budget cuts starting in January, as the sunny governor set aside relatively little in the state’s rainy-day fund.

The question is which Democrats dare challenge him. Raising the money to run is daunting. Mr. Christie will be able to pull in donations from national Republicans, who are not likely to sit idly while one of their most promising presidential contenders fights for his political future.

The city’s parks will continue their recovery from Hurricane Sandy, which caused them an estimated $540 million in damage. Particularly devastated were the beaches in the Rockaways in Queens, where two-thirds of the five-mile Boardwalk was torn from its concrete stanchions.

But the new year will also see several long-awaited openings.

In Prospect Park in Brooklyn, the $74 million Lakeside project will finally open in late fall. It will feature two ice rinks and a cafe overlooking the park’s scenic lake. In the summer, one rink will double as a water playground, while the other will become a roller rink.

In Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 2 opens later in the year with courts for basketball, handball and bocce. In addition, there will be a full in-line skating rink, a swing set, concessions and bathrooms.

Also in Brooklyn, a historic Coney Island carousel, the only survivor of two dozen wooden carousels that once whirled there, will reopen by summer. The 1919 B&B Carousell, which the city acquired in 2005, has been undergoing a restoration for years in Ohio. It will be placed in a newly constructed pavilion building under the Parachute Jump in Steeplechase Plaza.

In Central Park, Tavern on the Green, which closed three years ago after 75 years in business, is expected to reopen in the fall. The city is restoring the building, at Central Park West and 67th Street, to its smaller, historic footprint. Two restaurateurs from Philadelphia will operate the new place, which will be more casual than the old Tavern, catering to parkgoers and neighborhood residents. But it will serve up serious fare by the chef Katy Sparks, whose résumé includes Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill, Quilty’s and the Quilted Giraffe.

Coming off a year of historic lows in the city’s murder rate and undeniable highs in his job-approval ratings among residents, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly will be a hot topic in 2013: Will he stay or go once a new mayor is crowned? And if he goes, who will step in to replace him? One name that will almost certainly resurface is that of former Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, who is now chairman of Kroll, a security consulting firm.

Regardless of whether 2013 is his final year as commissioner, Mr. Kelly will seek to cement his legacy as an aggressive crime fighter who made New York City safer. To do so, he must continue to drive down violent crime in 2013, or at least hold the line on 2012’s murder rate. So Mr. Kelly is not likely to pull back on the department’s “stop, question and frisk” practices or hot-spot policing strategies like Operation Impact, in which rookie officers, paired with veterans, are deployed strategically to neighborhoods seeing surges in crime. That will mean more news articles detailing friction between Mr. Kelly and civil rights leaders who believe officers unfairly target black and Latino residents for street stops.

Readers should also look for articles examining the balance between privacy and public safety as the Police Department continues to harness new technology to combat global terrorism, drug and weapons trafficking, and sex crimes. It is a good bet that 2013 will be peppered with news about how cybersleuthing solved or thwarted crimes.

What may be the most anticipated development in the city’s transit system in 2013 was supposed to have happened in 2012. In May, the Transportation Department says, the city’s long-awaited bike-share program will finally begin. Originally planned for July 2012, the program was delayed: first by software problems, and then by flood damage to its equipment during Hurricane Sandy. When the bikes do start rolling, look for renewed debate over the viability of cycling as a public-transportation option in the city — a linchpin of the Bloomberg administration’s curbside legacy.

Another Bloomberg initiative, a near-uniform cab fleet filled with so-called Taxis of Tomorrow, is also slated to begin before the mayor leaves office. The vehicle, a Nissan NV200, is expected to be phased in over three to five years starting in late 2013, supplying riders with phone chargers, transparent roof panels and “lower annoyance” horns, the city said. The vehicle has been criticized for not being a hybrid, or wheelchair-accessible without modifications.

For subway, bus and railroad riders, the nation’s largest transportation network will begin 2013 without a long-term leader, as Joseph J. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, steps down to explore a run for New York City mayor. His replacement will face a spate of difficult decisions in 2013, particularly concerning how to rebuild the system in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Officials have said to expect regular train service to the Rockaways in Queens to return by the spring. But it would be a surprise if the South Ferry station in Lower Manhattan reopened in 2013.

Photographs within illustrations: John C. Liu: Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times; William C. Thompson Jr.: Richard Perry/The New York Times; Bill de Blasio and Joseph J. Lhota: Ángel Franco/The New York Times; Michael R. Bloomberg: Michael Appleton for The New York Times; Christine C. Quinn: Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times; Andrew M. Cuomo: Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times